“How many of you have played a video game or computer game?” Eleven Fifty Academy instructor Deon Seifert asked a group of fourth-graders.
Every hand in the room went up.
“There is code behind all of that, and the code can be in different languages,” Seifert told the students seated on the floor of Van Buren Elementary School’s science lab.
Within the hour, they learned to speak some of that language, creating code for the popular computer game Minecraft.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]This lesson was part of Cool Coding Week, Sept. 25 through Oct. 1.
Eleven Fifty Academy, a Fishers-based nonprofit, teaches people of all ages and skill sets how to code.
The weeklong event was paid for by the Brown County Redevelopment Commission and hosted by Brown County Schools.
Students in all of the elementaries, intermediate, junior high and high schools were exposed to an hour of coding.
High school students were able to use code.org to learn how to make smartphone apps.
“Just like human beings have a lot of different ways they can talk to each other, computers, we need to tell them what to do in their language. There are thousands of different languages, computer languages, like there are for human languages,” Seifert said.
Instructor Angie Washburn told the students that if they used mods in Minecraft, they already had done some coding themselves. Using “cheat codes” is another form of coding, Seifert added.
“You’re changing the coding of the game to your benefit,” she said.
Using Blockly coding language on code.org, students were able to direct a Minecraft character to take steps forward, turn left or right, shear a sheep, place a torch and, most importantly, avoid the “creepers.”
This was done by taking blocks with actions, like “Turn right,” and placing them into a chain with other actions.
Underneath that code block is Javascript, a common computer language, Seifert said. As students become more comfortable with the concept, they can start working directly with Javascript.
Semicolons and parenthesis are used often in coding, Seifert said. Using Blockly language first instead of writing out the actual codes helps students avoid the frustration of having the logic of the code correct but the code not working due to something like a misplaced semicolon.
“It would turn (the students) completely off,” Seifert said.
After the instructors walked the students through the first couple of levels, students were able to take off and do coding on their own.
Fourth-grader Tyler Baker had never coded before, so he was “kind of scared” to learn about it. But he said it was fun and he liked it because Minecraft is his favorite game.
Jaden Mock said he wants to create video games when he grows up and that lesson helped to “inspire” him to be a coder.
Jennica Weinke said she thought the lesson was “really cool.”
“I never knew coding was a thing,” she said.
Hailee Darnell said she liked the lesson because it challenged her. She’s decided she wants to be a computer coder “in her spare time” when she grows up, along with being a rancher and a park ranger.
“It was a fun experience, figuring out what you had to do,” she said. “On the creeper one, I persevered when I did this, because I accidentally did the wrong (code) and I couldn’t go backwards unless I restarted the whole thing, so I just went a different path.”
